'Meaning you can't really stop us!' Hollyika taunted then.
They both felt the pause. Hollyika's sword clattered suddenly onto the plain. She was not swift to take it up. The horses pricked up their ears and tossed their heads, sensing a change. 'What is it, what is it?' Vandien muttered to himself and suddenly knew. The Limbreth no longer harkened to them, no longer paid any attention at all; its thoughts and will were withdrawn.
Hollyika stared at the smooth side of the Limbreth. How had her sword clung when it had not even notched it? She shrugged and bent gingerly to retrieve her weapon. She sheathed it and looked to Vandien for a rare meeting of eyes.
'Do you really think it can't stop us from following Ki?' he asked her seriously.
'Who cares?' she replied, typically Brurjan. 'Thinking, feeling, guessing, wondering,' she muttered under her breath, flaring her nostrils at him. She caught her horse as Vandien clambered back to the wagon seat. They were going on. There was nothing more for them here; the Limbreths had gone, as if these stony bodies were not where they resided at all. The valley seemed empty as a tomb, and the Limbreths themselves monuments to forgotten wizards.
Hollyika stirred her horse. 'Before you ask,' she called back grudgingly over her shoulder. 'There's only one other road out of here. We may as well follow it, for the Romni fool did. Come on, will you?'
With a sigh, Vandien slapped the reins on the broad grey backs in front of him. He could not quell a nagging feeling that something more should have happened here. The Limbreths should have told himmore, should have done more, been more. But their attention had turned elsewhere, listening to voices he could not hope to hear. A brooding fear hung over him and sneered at him more harshly than the Brurjan. He no longer felt his life was his own; he had become a chip on a gaming table. The vision the Limbreths had given him still colored his thoughts, and he had a horrible prescience that when he found Ki, she too would know how insignificant they both were. How could she care? He watched Hollyika's straight back before him rising and falling steadily with the pace of her mount, and longed for her stoicism.
SIXTEEN
Cerie tried to shift quietly in her cushioned throne, but even the light rustle of her robe against the embroidered cushions made Rebeke shudder. Cerie froze, cursing herself for having disturbed the other Windsinger's concentration. As one entrusted with a speaking egg, she was aware of how it painfully heightened all senses in the user. A sigh left her silently as she resumed her long vigil.
She had left orders with her acolyte Windsingers that they were not to be disturbed, no matter what crisis loomed, until Cerie herself came to the door and ordered otherwise. All her attendants had been dismissed; lessons had been canceled for the day. The room looked bare without her white-robed students; the deserted looms hung heavy with half-finished tapestries and books lay in neglected heaps on the long trestle tables; nor was there the group of little white-robed Singers that usually clustered at her feet to learn their notes and letters, and fly to her errands. She regretted this interruption of their routine, but it was necessary, or so Rebeke had said, and she was inclined to believe. Even so. She swallowed vainly at the lump of unease in her throat. If they were caught; if word ever leaked out that she had loaned to another the speaking egg entrusted to her care; if Rebeke were clumsy or unskilled and damaged the sensitive little organism; Cerie closed her eyes, willing away her visions of disaster. There was nothing to be gained by worrying. The High Council would know that she had been closeted privately with Rebeke for the longer part of a day; that would stir wrath and questions enough without her borrowing trouble.
She opened her eyes. One look at Rebeke and doubt ate away her resolve like acid. Rebeke no longer sat straight on her cushion, the egg pressed to her brow. She drooped, her tall cowled head bent so far forward that it nearly brushed the floor; the blue fabric of her robe was damp and Cerie smelled the musk of her sweat. The tray of wine and food that Rebeke would need when she came out of trance sat untouched beside her. Cerie tried to remember if she had ever heard of any Windsinger holding the trance this long. It was an effort of will, comparable to gripping a razor-sharp blade and holding it as someone tried to wrest it away. But there was more to using the egg than merely enduring the pain. One had to have the will to ignore the pain and direct the egg, to command it to one's own bidding. That sort of will took training to shape. Rebeke claimed that she had been able to train herself, working from the old writings of the Windsingers. Cerie wondered. Perhaps Rebeke sat lost before her, her mind jerked free of her body by the egg's questing, taken to some far place it would never return from. That had happened before. There was a hall maintained for them by the High Council where they sat in honor for their service, speechless, sightless, neither alive nor dead. Rebeke would not look well among them.
Her heart began to beat faster as she wondered if Rebeke were already lost. Yet to touch her, to speak to her, would be certain to shatter her concentration and lose her to the egg. So Cerie sat motionless, gripping her hands together.
A sound came, a gurgle of breath drawn with difficulty. Rebeke slid sideways like jelly, and Cerie sprang hastily to her feet. But even as Rebeke collapsed, her hand reached to deposit the egg safely in its nestedcushion. Cerie heard the slight hiss of it against the silk, and saw a tendril of near-colorless smoke rise from it. Heaving a sigh of relief, she knelt by Rebeke and picked up the pot of healing unguent that would soothe the peculiar burns of the egg. Rebeke sprawled limply, allowing Cerie to smooth it into her blistered hands and ease it softly over the circular mark on her forehead.
'Wine?' Cerie asked, and Rebeke's eyelids fluttered slightly. She raised Rebeke's head and held the cup to her lips. Rebeke took two tiny hesitant sips, and suddenly her blistered hands rose to clasp the cup on their own, heedless of pain, as she drained it off. Her eyes opened and her trembling hands snatched at the food on the tray, cramming the cakes into her wide mouth, gulping like a feeding Harpy. Cerie turned her head aside. It did not disgust her. Too often had she returned from the trance of the egg, and felt the savage hunger of a body mercilessly drained. Even before Rebeke had finished, she rose to go to a side table, bringing back with her a large bowl of fruit, and a basin of scented water with a small towel soaking in it. Still Rebeke did not speak as she laved her hands and sponged her face. But she sighed as she reached for the first piece of fruit, and her eyes finally met Cerie's.
'I spoke to them.' Triumph vied with exhaustion in her voice. And something else; an unidentifiable emotion that jabbed at Cerie's fears.
'Were you able to strike a bargain?' Cerie demanded.
'No.' Rebeke poured herself more wine. 'Or perhaps I should say, not yet. I hope I have left them little choice.'
'Tell me.' Cerie poured wine of her own. She glanced at her comfortable throne longingly, but Rebeke had not moved from the carpeted floor.
'We began well enough. Very flowery courtesies they employ. They were surprised to hear me; Yoleth had told them she was the only Windsinger powerful enough to speak to them. They were very wary of me. I told them there had been a grave mistake; that we wished Ki and Vandien returned, and that we would return the two from their world. The Limbreth politely said it was impossible.' Rebeke hesitated. 'It is difficult to speak to them. There is such a sense of many in one, that I did not know if I dealt with one mind or many. Very distracting. Tell me, has Yoleth said aught to the Council of a calling gem? The Limbreth claimed that it had given her one as a final sealing of the bargain.'